


all of the ghouls come out to play

by lady_laverty



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Natasha Romanov Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-03-02
Packaged: 2017-12-04 01:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/705124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_laverty/pseuds/lady_laverty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Clint’s jovial and childish mindset will hide the darkness that will lurk behind his clear blue eyes that are too, too bright with the curse that Loki has placed upon him.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	all of the ghouls come out to play

 

 

_"Agent Barton was sent to kill me. He made a different call.”_

* * *

The similarities between the situation that she was in and the one that Clint is in right now are eerie. Too eerie for her liking but she is dealing with _gods_ , so what can she do? _Hawkeye_ , her mind tells her, there is no time for personal feelings in this race of death with a monster of rage. Her leg sends jolts of pain to her brain, but she ignores them. Adrenaline surges through her veins and she is running, _running_ , running for her life because she was the one who brought him onto the helicarrier in the first place and _of course_ she is the person that Hulk is going to be angry with.

She runs and dodges until Thor, being the chivalrous god that he is, distracts Hulk and she can rest and try and stop her heart from beating too, too fast. The helicarrier shakes and jerks and she knows, deep down, that it is Hawkeye. That Hawkeye is causing this destruction and death, under the subjugation of Loki and how he will never forgive himself when he comes back to himself. (She’s someone who doesn't give up the rare people she loves easily so she _will_ get him back.) She knows this guilt, knows how it feels. She had felt it when she was deprogrammed. When SHIELD removed whatever the Red Room had put into her mind and the weight of the sins she had wrought upon an unsuspecting but not innocent world almost crushed her.

Clint’s jovial and childish mindset will hide the darkness that will lurk behind his clear blue eyes that are too, too bright with the curse that Loki has placed upon him.

Fury and Hill think of him as an expendable asset that they can put down like a rabid dog if he goes off the reservation. If they did, she’d rain hell down upon them, destroy them like they destroyed the last part of her heart and soul that was untainted by the deeds she was ordered to do by Red Room and SHIELD.

She still loved him in the same naïve way that she did when she was 18 and he was still more circus performer than a mature, 32 year old SHIELD agent. Loved him the same way she did when he dragged her back to Agent Coulson by the hand like a dog with bone. She followed him around and he proudly showed her the ins and outs of SHIELD life, showed her his bow collection and took her out to all the museums and art galleries because at that time he was stationed in New York and tried to ignore the jump in her heart when he includes her in his ‘adventures’.

They both got older and more inseparable with every mission they were sent on. The names Black Widow and Hawkeye became names to be feared. If you heard them in conjunction with yours, _you’d better run_ , because they’re coming for you and they’re not going to stop until they find you.

Running is futile, they always find them.

_She will always find him._

They send them to Budapest and everything goes to hell. Their aliases are blown and Clint is left out in the open surrounded by a hit squad and is almost, _almost_ killed. She finds him knocked out in a puddle of his own blood which is seeping from a bullet wound to his gut. Panic courses through her veins for the first time in her life; for the man that she loves with her entire being. But she can’t show it. She’s too damaged, too far gone, but Clint loves her anyway. She sits at his bedside until they take him out of the medically induced coma they put him into to save his life. Watches as his sky blue eyes blink blearily and focus on her and a weak smile crease his face and she cries, great sobs rolling out of her chest like thunder over a valley and throws herself over him.

It takes them months to get back out into the field but they do and the bodies of 6 KGB hit men appear mysteriously on the doorstep of the Kremlin.

The situation with Loki is similar; they are outnumbered because they don’t know who is on his side. The just don’t know and that is what scares Fury even though he doesn’t show it. So when Fury’s voice crackles over the SHIELD communications line she’s already bracing herself.

_“It's Barton. He took our systems. He's headed for the detention level. Does anybody copy?”_

_“This is Agent Romanoff. Copy.”_

She drags herself out of the protective position she seated herself into and gingerly moves around the debris and makes her way down to the detention level with clenched fists and her heart locked away. She’s the Black Widow and he’s Hawkeye and together they are unstoppable but against each other they destroy each other. They aren’t supposed to be like this.

She creeps up on him but he already knows she’s there and they fight. They fight and fight, for minutes upon minutes and she must look wild by now because she feels wild. She cracks him against the walkway bars and his attempts to grip it fail when he’s slip-sliding down onto the floor grating. He looks up and the electric blue of his is beginning to clear and a broken “Tasha?” escapes his mouth and he looks up at her in mute horror and she hesitates for only a second before sending a hit to his solar plexus and knocking him out cold.

She calls for security, gets down on her knees, lets her hand roam around his taut and pale skin and places a chaste kiss to his chestnut hair. She leaves without looking back, knowing that she will be there when he wakes up and she knows that he will need her.

* * *

 

 

_"You lie and kill in the service of liars and killers. You pretend to be separate, to have your own code, something that makes up for the horrors. But they are part of you and they will never go away."_

**Author's Note:**

> Wow. This was done on a bender of excitement and BlackHawk emotions. 
> 
> Title comes from the Florence + the Machine song "Shake It Out".
> 
> All mistakes are my own. I lack a beta reader, sadly.


End file.
